Economic Research Service August 18, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The New England Fishery Management Council (Council) is scheduling a public meeting of its Groundfish Committee to consider actions affecting New England fisheries in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Recommendations from this group will be brought to the full Council for formal consideration and action, if appropriate.

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's (MAFMC) Scientific and Statistical Committee's (SSC) Scientific Uncertainty Subcommittee will hold a public meeting.

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) will hold a meeting of its Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) to review stock projections and consider fishing level recommendations for blueline tilefish.

NMFS and the Northeast Regional Stock Assessment Workshop (SAW) will convene a peer review of Operational Stock Assessments of twenty fish stocks. These stocks are managed by the New England Fishery Management Council and are included within the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. This will be a formal, scientific peer review of operational assessments which incorporate recent data. Results of the review will be used as a basis for management decisions for fish stocks in U.S. waters of the northwest Atlantic. Assessments are prepared by stock assessment scientists primarily from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and reviewed by a panel of stock assessment experts. The public is invited to attend the presentations and discussions by reviewers and scientists who have participated in the stock assessment process.

Based on the final Northeast multispecies sector rosters submitted as of May 1, 2015, we are adjusting the fishing year 2015 specification of annual catch limits for commercial groundfish vessels, as well as sector annual catch entitlements and common pool allocations for groundfish stocks. This revision to fishing year 2015 catch levels is necessary to account for changes in the number of participants electing to fish in either sectors or the common pool fishery. This action details unused sector quotas that may be carried over from fishing year 2014 to fishing year 2015. This action also reduces the fishing year 2015 common pool allocation of Eastern Georges Bank cod and adjusts common pool incidental catch limits to account for a common pool fishing year 2014 overage.

This final rule implements Amendment 6 to the 2006 Consolidated Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fishery Management Plan (FMP) (Amendment 6) to increase management flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of the Atlantic shark fisheries; prevent overfishing while achieving on a continuing basis optimum yield; and rebuild overfished shark stocks. Specifically, this final rule increases the large coastal shark (LCS) retention limit for directed shark permit holders to a maximum of 55 LCS per trip, with a default limit of 45 LCS per trip, and reduces the sandbar shark research fishery quota to account for dead discards of sandbar sharks during LCS trips; establishes a management boundary in the Atlantic region along 34[deg]00' N. latitude for the small coastal shark (SCS) fishery, north of which harvest and landings of blacknose sharks is prohibited and south of which the quota linkage between blacknose sharks and non- blacknose SCS is maintained; implements a non-blacknose SCS total allowable catch (TAC) of 489.3 mt dw and a commercial quota of 264.1 mt dw in the Atlantic region; apportions the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) regional commercial quotas for aggregated LCS, blacktip, and hammerhead sharks into western and eastern sub-regional quotas along 88[deg]00' W. longitude; implements a non-blacknose SCS TAC of 999.0 mt dw, increases the commercial non-blacknose SCS quota to 112.6 mt dw, and prohibits retention of blacknose sharks in the GOM; and removes the current upgrading restrictions for shark directed limited access permit (LAP) holders.